COMMENTARY
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Fast Eat the Slow
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
DOHA, Qatar -- There's an interesting new trend in
the Arab world that is easily detectable from here in
Qatar, the small Persian Gulf emirate off the east
coast of Saudi Arabia. It's this: Almost all the
innovation happening in the Arab world today ó
politically, economically and technologically ó
is happening in the small states on the periphery,
while the least innovation is happening in the big
traditional Arab powers ó Iraq, Egypt, Syria
and Saudi Arabia ó that always dominated this
region.
Just go around the crescent: Morocco and Tunisia
have taken the lead among Arab states in joining the
global economy by forging free-trade agreements with
the European Union. Over the next decade both
countries will become associate members of the E.U.,
which will force them to raise their competitiveness
in industrial goods and harmonize their laws,
standards and regulations with the organization. This
will gradually take them out of the Arab world. At the
same time, little Jordan just became the first Arab
state to sign a a free- trade accord with the U.S.
Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite TV station, which is
the freest in the Arab world, has stolen Arab TV
audiences from every one of the big powers in the
region with its freewheeling debates, uncensored news
and, lately, online polling ó which is a total
no-no in the Arab world, where people are never asked
what they actually think about specific governments or
policies. Kuwait's big National Bank of Kuwait is by
far the best private bank in the Arab world, and
Bahrain's service sector ó lawyering, insurance
and consulting ó is the most globally
competitive in the region.
Meanwhile, the new Internet City in Dubai, also in
the Persian Gulf, has attracted Oracle, Microsoft,
I.B.M. and 200 other tech firms for their regional
headquarters, because Dubai's combo of low taxes and
good governance is so much better than the old power
centers of Damascus, Cairo or Baghdad. Where is the
World Trade Organization holding its summit next year?
In Riyadh? No, in Qatar. Where will the I.M.F. and
World Bank hold their 2003 summit? In Damascus? No, in
Dubai.
And where are the freest elections? In Jordan,
Morocco and in the gulf. Bahrain will hold a
referendum on becoming a constitutional monarchy next
month, as will Qatar in 2002. In March 1999 Qatar held
the first free municipal elections in the region, in
which women were allowed to vote and run for office.
The only known political prisoner in Qatar is a man
jailed for denouncing Qatar's progressive emir, Sheik
Hamad, because he let women vote.
By contrast, the big boys ó Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq and Syria ó have been much slower
to bring their non- energy industries into the global
economy, get wired and reform politically. Why is
this? To begin with, globalization. With
globalization, the big don't eat the small, the fast
eat the slow. And the little Arab countries, many of
which are now led by young new kings, can see what's
happening in the world and are much quicker to adapt
than big bureaucratic countries such as Egypt or
police states such as Iraq and Syria.
Second, the farther an Arab state is from the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the more its leaders do
not have their energies, focus and economies diverted
and distorted by it.
Third, many of the smaller Arab states were not
cursed with large amounts of oil, so they have had to
live more by their wits and by learning to trade with
the rest of the world. "We diversified out of oil
early, because we had to," said Bahrain's innovative
Crown Prince Salman. "We really concentrated on
developing our human capital."
Fourth, in the Arab world today almost all the
small, peripheral states are led by kings who are
progressive and relatively close to their people,
while the big central states ó Syria, Egypt and
Iraq ó are led by army officers who are
autocrats and afraid of their people. Generally
speaking, the Arab states on the periphery, with their
small populations, are also much more open to foreign
influences. "I have 26 different nationalities working
for me in Kuwait," remarked a Kuwaiti banker. "That
would not be possible in a lot of other Arab
countries."
For decades it was the big, central Arab powers
that set the tone for the Arab world and led
innovation. But today the region is being led from the
outer edges. It's the little guys that are doing the
most interesting stuff, and it's the big guys that
will be left behind if they don't wake up.